Crypta Hereticarum: A ZEITGEIST D&D Sidequest

Over on EN5ider is a bonus side quest adventure for those playing the 5th Edition ZEITGEIST adventure path. Evil lies trapped within the Crypta Hereticarum—the Vault of Heresies. The Clergy believes that true evil cannot be destroyed, and that killing an unholy disciple or destroying a cursed item will only free its malevolence to wreak havoc elsewhere in the world. For centuries, whenever the priests and godhands of the Clergy collected dangerous items, captured evil acolytes, or rescued afflicted innocents whose curses they could not break, they placed them in the vault, built beneath the desolate isle of Odiem, off the coast of the city Sid Minos.

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After the Great Malice, the Clergy fell into disarray for years, and those responsible for maintaining the vault had more pressing issues. They sealed it, tried to erase knowledge of it, and used their divine power to compel all those who had drowned in the rocky seas nearby to rise up and slay any intruders.

Many still tried to plunder its treasures—indeed, in the default version of events, it’s already picked clean by the time the PCs arrive in Adventure #4: Always on Time. But these dungeon delvers are drawn not only by the promise of rare riches and powerful magic, but by the mysterious temptation of the vault’s greatest prisoner, Ashima-Shimtu.

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[Ancalagon]

Is this new , or new to 5e?

 

[Morrus]

Is this new , or new to 5e?

New to 5E.

 

[efreund]

As a fan of the Pathfinder version (note that this material was originally written in 4e), I can say this is a quality location. It's also the only thing that really qualifies as a "dungeon" in the whole of the Zeitgeist adventure path. (There's also 2 more significant opportunities to visit it over the course of the campaign (in advs 8 & 11), making it the most-revisited adventure content in the game. Worth a pickup!)

That being said, it's not a classic D&D-style dungeon. It's more like the Barrow Downs from Might & Magic if anyone's familiar with that style. There are nine rooms, each with a very similar layout, but completely different contents and means of solving/bypassing each. They are done "set piece" style.

There are then long hallways between each of the set pieces, in which the GM can throw transition-events. The PCs are actually given a map of the place at the end of the first room (and by "map" I mean "node diagram"), and there's a lot of freedom to figure out where and how they want to proceed. The dungeon appeals more to motivated types who want to seek out specific things and avoid specific things as their interest drives them, rather than more completionist types who simply want to "hit up all the content."

The final encounter works great within the context of the overall ZG AP, giving you great insight into the lore of the world, and setting up an interesting recurring NPC. However, if running this as a standalone dungeon, the final encounter would be fairly anti-climactic or even pointless, and might have to be reworked with a more classic demon-baddie.